Pesthouses

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Buildings specifically intended for the isolation and treatment of people suffering from transmissible illnesses
2. Structures designated to separate individuals infected with contagious diseases to prevent spread
3. Places built to quarantine people carrying infectious conditions for public health safety

Etymology: "Pesthouses" is the plural of "pesthouse," a building set aside to isolate people sick with a contagious disease. The noun is a plain compound of "pest," in its older sense of a deadly epidemic plague, and "house." In other words, the name describes exactly what the building was: a house for the pest, the plague itself, rather than a house for pests in the modern sense of vermin or nuisances. The older meaning of "pest" came from Latin "pestis," meaning plague or pestilence, and it reached English through French. Over time the word's sense narrowed and weakened, so that by the modern era "pest" more often means an annoying person or an insect that damages crops, while the epidemic meaning survives mainly in compounds like this one.

Synonyms: quarantine, hospital, asylum